Sparked by my reading of and about Kuukai, I have a few random thoughts on how Shingon figures in the plot and themes of Mirage (with the usual disclaimer that I know next to nothing about Shingon).

When You're at Odds with Your Religion (Or Are You?)

Years ago, I remarked somewhere that Naoe reminds me of Ivan Karamazov. One comes from a Buddhist tradition, the other from a Christian tradition, but both are strongly at odds with the religions they belong to, to the point of superlative resistance. Ivan remarks that he would walk a quadrillion miles around the universe before he would accept God's world; Naoe is apparently prepared to live for a billion years rather than accept non-attachment and enlightenment.

On a daily level, it must be galling for Naoe to be so at odds with his own religion. Even though he doesn't doubt his choice to always put Kagetora first, he is constantly aware that his choice is considered wrong by his own tradition.

For example, Kuukai writes, "[N]ever abandon the aspiration to attain enlightenment. If one loses it, he is to be expelled" (96). Naoe must sometimes feel like such words are aimed right at him: "he is to be expelled, Naoe. I'm talking to you!" Kuukai is referring to monks in the Shingon order, and there is Naoe, a Shingon monk, constantly living in a state deserving expulsion.

Here's Kuukai with some more criticism from "The Precious Key to the Secret Treasury": "[D]eranged men wrongly believe in the notion of a permanent ego and are firmly attached to it. They rush around like thirsty deer seeking water in a dusty field, believing mirages to be real" (158).

("Roll credits," as the Cinema Sins guy would say.)

Joking aside, this is the crux of the series. "Mirage of Blaze…" is a bad translation; let's call it "Mirage of Fire" to make it decent English and examine what this means. The image is of extreme heat and brightness, passion, fury, energy—but it isn't real. The title in Japanese doesn't differentiate between singular and plural, and I think that's true thematically as well as grammatically: there are many examples of such "mirages," but they are also all one, aspects of the same delusion.

One of the central referents of this metaphor is the Yami Sengoku, the idea that somehow it makes sense for warlords who have been dead for 400 years to come back and keep fighting wars that are long over for control of a Japan that has long since moved past their way of understanding the world. Everybody we care about as a central "good" character kind of agrees that this is dumb.

A more troubling referent is the Yashashuu, beings of great power and passion, who, nonetheless, like other spirits in the Yami Sengoku, have lived past their time and aren't really quite properly part of the modern world.

More troubling still is the specific instance of the love between Naoe and Kagetora. As readers, we generally don't want to believe this is a "mirage," however fiery. We want to believe, along with Kagetora and Naoe, that it's real and eternal and their "ideal way of being," and all that. But Shingon disagrees. It cannot be denied that their love is an ego attachment—Naoe and Kagetora certainly don't deny it—and, therefore, according to their religion, it is to be moved beyond. It is ultimately an illusion, a misapprehension of the transcendent nature of impermanence and emptiness and unborn mind, and all that stuff.

And actually both Kagetora and Naoe do ultimately—amazingly—move in the direction of accepting that, though we don't see the ultimate, non-attached acceptance. We do, however, see this movement in their post-volume 20, and especially post-volume 24, relationship. In this stage, each of them has somewhat worked out his feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. Each feels more secure. Therefore, they need each other less. Their relationship is healthier and more compassionate but, by that token, less attached. Their ability to find sufficiency in themselves—to desire less externally—is proportionally greater. This is slightly true of Naoe, but it is more obviously true of Kagetora, who becomes much more secure and self-adequate. Toward the end, his love for Naoe ceases to be particularly needy and becomes very largely about being there for Naoe—or regretting that he can't be—because Naoe needs him. This is not non-attached by any means, but it is moving down that continuum.

Naoe, for his part, continues to be invested in the idea of his identity as Kagetora's eternal lover and admirer. He vows he'll remain "Naoe" till the end of humanity in order to preserve the memory of Kagetora. Here Kagetora and Naoe illustrate antipodes of Kuukai's dictum that one can achieve enlightenment within a single lifetime. While we don't see either of them achieve it, we see Kagetora move toward it rapidly in his last two years of life, jettisoning much suffering, desire, and attachment in favor of a broader, less ego-concerned compassion. Naoe, however, may possibly be hanging out for a billion (!) years methodically refusing to be enlightened because it would betray his love for Kagetora.

But even in this scenario, Naoe moves toward enlightenment too. In Naoe's vision of far-future Naoe, future Naoe says he is still not at the end of his journey. I read this as his assertion that he is still not enlightened, still not ready to let go of his life as Naoe. However, the very fact that he frames this as a journey toward some end point other than love for Kagetora (which he already has) shows that he has been moving toward less attachment to Kagetora, toward some other destination. Kuukai held that every being in its nature is already enlightened. We simply need to uncover the truth. Fast or slow, both Kagetora and Naoe are on the journey to this uncovering. We see both begin to dispel the mirage.

But Shingon Does Validate Their Love Too

Ultimately, Shingon tells Naoe and Kagetora that they need to get beyond their attachment to each other. But if that's a bitter pill to swallow, it is sweetened by some tendencies of Shingon that help them along their way.

Mirage, at its best, is a supremely psychologically astute text, and one of its core observations is that psychological development is a process. It cannot be forced; it does not take shortcuts. We need to grow before we can be grown up. And so if ultimately Naoe and Kagetora need to move beyond their grasping need for each other, if ultimately Naoe at least (since his soul still exists) might achieve enlightenment and move beyond that attached love altogether, that can only happen as the culmination of a process. And the process requires all the ugly, beautiful, dysfunctional mucking about we see them go through.

Part of this process is, of course, their sexual relationship, and here I think Shingon helps them a lot by validating the non-duality of mind and body and providing a framework that can incorporate their physical relationship into their spiritual development.

Yoshito Hakeda writes, "Translated literally Kukai's motto reads 'attaining enlightenment in this very body.' … The choice of the word 'body' over the normally expected 'mind' underscores the basic character of Kukai's religion: emphasis on direct religious experience through one's total being and not merely through the intellect" (78). Now, Kuukai was not talking about hot gay sex, but if you're Naoe and Kagetora, this perspective is amenable to their sexual relationship. In fact, the process they end up undergoing of sharing pieces of their souls through sexual contact and priming Naoe's body/soul to incorporate what's left of Kagetora fits very neatly with this mind-body non-dualism. Body and soul are not separate; Naoe and Kagetora are not separate.

Kuukai also writes of the seventh stage of enlightenment, "Since the state of defilement is none other than the state of enlightenment, there is no need to cut off defilement and to attain enlightenment" (202). Again Kuukai is obviously not writing with Naoe and Kagetora in mind, but for Kagetora, in particular, this encapsulates a crucial realization. Kagetora feels defiled in a sexual sense for nearly all his life, and it messes up his psyche tremendously. In order to break out of his cycle of self-loathing, one of the things he has to do is accept his own sexuality, in particular accept that he wants to be penetrated. He must come to the realization that in being defiled, he is not defiled, that in placing himself in a position he has identified with shame and subjugation, he need not be shamed and subjugated. In fact, his acceptance of this role not only does not hinder his spiritual development; it accelerates it by helping him be at peace with himself (and with Naoe).

Shingon's profound acceptance of the physical world and physical body as undifferentiated from the mind can be a source of welcoming for Kagetora and Naoe as they propel the development of their souls forward so significantly through the union of their bodies.

Mirage often enacts "rebellion," to borrow again from The Brothers Karamazov, against the characters' religion. But ultimately, it does not rebel. Its trajectory is consistent with Buddhist teachings, perhaps particularly Shingon. It simply illustrates that trajectory with minute and painstaking psychological realism.